[…] The Cable spokes with several advisors to the campaign, both inside and outside the foreign policy team, and compiled the best RUMINT available. All the advisors spoke on condition of anonymity and cautioned that no decisions have been made.

Former senator Jim Talent is widely regarded as the top choice for defense secretary in a potential Romney administration. A former four-term congressman and one-term senator from Missouri, Talent is one of Romney’s closest national security advisors and is intimately involved in the campaign’s national security policy making and messaging. He speaks for the campaign on a regular basis and focuses on arguing for increased defense budgets and what the Romney camp sees as a more assertive foreign policy. He’s certainly hawkish in his views, but respected by all sectors of the GOP foreign-policy community. Talent has both political and bureaucratic skills. The Pentagon is his if he wants it, several advisors say, but former Navy secretary John Lehman could also fill that role.

For secretary of state, most advisors interviewed for this article said that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is under serious consideration at the top levels of the campaign. An “independent Democrat,” Lieberman, who hasn’t endorsed any presidential candidate this cycle, was almost chosen by Sen. John McCain to run as vice president on his 2008 ticket. Lieberman will be unemployed in January when he retires after 24 years in the Senate. He has spent much of that time developing close relationships with foreign leaders all over the world, and he is a strong supporter of Israel, a major focus of Romney’s critique of Obama. By choosing him, Romney could show bipartisanship while handing the reins in Foggy Bottom to someone with international stature and whose foreign-policy views are more hawkish than many Republicans.

Zoellick is also said to be lobbying hard for Foggy Bottom, and some think he could have the inside track, considering that he is the Romney campaign’s new head of national security transition planning. But Romney’s foreign-policy pronouncements thus far have not been in line with Zoellick’s realist views and it’s well understood that having a top position in a campaign doesn’t assure anyone a top position in the succeeding administration. A dark-horse candidate for state would be CIA Director David Petraeus, who can’t become defense secretary until he has been out of uniform for 7 years but could be America’s top diplomat.

The national security advisor (NSA) position varies in prominence from administration to administration, but the role is highly prized because whoever holds it has direct access to the president and key control over the policy-making process. Some think that Romney might go for retired general Jack Keane, who served in an unofficial but important capacity during the Bush administration and has been a strong Romney supporter. The logic of the Keane choice would be similar to the logic Obama used when picking his first NSA Jim Jones, another experienced four-star general. But Jones’s inability to fit into the White House political dynamic, which ultimately led to his resignation, might serve as a warning for a Romney administration thinking about putting Keane in the same situation.

Other rumored contenders for Romney’s NSA are technocratic officials who have served in top policy positions in GOP administrations before, including former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman, former NSC Middle East staffer Elliott Abrams, or former State Department Policy Planning director Mitchell Reiss. Campaign aide Dan Senor, who has been closely advising Romney on all thing Middle East, could be in line for a deputy NSA slot, the kind of role Denis McDonough plays in the current administration, some advisors say. […]